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109-764: Farel was born in 1489 in Gap . He was a pupil of the pro-reform Catholic priesthood , at the University of Paris , in the earliest years of the Reformation . There he met the scholar Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples who helped Farel obtain a professorship to teach grammar and philosophy at the Collège Cardinal Lemoine in Paris. With Lefevre he became a member of the Cercle de Meaux gathered together from 1519 by

218-568: A commandery  [ fr ] . The creation of the Consulate  [ fr ] , which ruled the city, dated back to before 1209. In the 14th century, the city took advantage of the benefits of the installation of the Popes in Avignon , which brought a more frequent passage of travellers to develop a craft of wool and skins, which made it thrive. Avignon linkages were strengthened by

327-421: A "realm of 100,000 steeples". Parishes lacked the municipal structures of post-Revolution communes. Usually, one contained only a building committee ( conseil de fabrique ), made up of villagers, which managed the buildings of the parish church, the churchyard, and the other numerous church estates and properties, and sometimes also provided help for the poor, or even administered parish hospitals or schools. Since

436-707: A bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics , but lost out as France's candidate to nearby Annecy . The games were eventually awarded to Pyeongchang in South Korea . An Alpine crossroads at the intersection of D994 and the Route nationale 85 , or Route Napoléon , which crosses the Col Bayard north of the city, Gap is located between the historic Dauphiné and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur administrative region. With its 40,559 inhabitants (2018), it

545-445: A category currently being phased out), made up of 33,327 communes (91.1 percent of all the communes of metropolitan France), and 52.86 million inhabitants, i.e., 86.7 percent of the population of metropolitan France. These impressive results however may hide a murkier reality. In rural areas, many communes have entered a community of communes only to benefit from government funds. Often the local syndicate has been turned officially into

654-537: A commune for their administration. This is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions: Furthermore, two regions without permanent habitation have no communes: In metropolitan France , the average area of a commune in 2004 was 14.88 square kilometres (5.75 sq mi). The median area of metropolitan France's communes at

763-537: A community of communes, the new community of communes in fact managing only the services previously managed by the syndicate, contrary to the spirit of the law which has established the new intercommunal structures to carry out a much broader range of activities than that undertaken by the old syndicates. Some say that, should government money transfers be stopped, many of these communities of communes would revert to their former status of syndicate, or simply completely disappear in places where there were no syndicates prior to

872-589: A density of communes as France, and even there an extensive merger movement has started in the last 10 years. To better grasp the staggering number of communes in France, two comparisons can be made: First, of the original 15 member states of the European Union there are approximately 75,000 communes; France alone, which comprises 16 percent of the population of the EU-15, had nearly half of its communes. Second,

981-613: A few days earlier, sent two emissaries to negotiate the surrender of the Germans. The Germans were convinced of facing a large-scale uprising, and agreed to lay down their weapons provided that it was to regular troops (they refused, therefore, to surrender to the Resistance). While the Americans were more than 50 kilometres (31 mi) away, time was pressing for Drouot-L'Hermine. Indeed, he received an order from De Gaulle to liberate

1090-585: A key point of the Cannes-Lyon axis. Jean Drouot-L'Hermine  [ fr ] , 37 years old, an original Gaullist resistant and accomplished soldier (he had trained more than 4000 resistance fighters in combat and about a hundred in sabotage) was sent by the GPRF of General de Gaulle to liberate the city on behalf of the Resistance. Aided by local guerrillas and resistance, he has however no way to take

1199-554: A leader of tribes of the Valley of Suze , allied to Rome, and urged by Augustus , undertook the building of a route of communication in the Valley of the Durance . He had get the submission of the peoples of the area who were eager to maintain their independence. This route, built between 14 and 6 BC, and which received the name of Via Cottia per Alpem , linked Turin to Sisteron and consisted of six stations. Then known as Vapincum ,

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1308-769: A massive merger of communes, including by such distinguished voices as the president of the Cour des Comptes (the central auditing administrative body in France). In 1971 the Marcellin law offered support and money from the government to entice the communes to merge freely with each other, but the law had only a limited effect (only about 1,300 communes agreed to merge with others). Many rural communes with few residents struggle to maintain and manage basic services such as running water, garbage collection, or properly paved communal roads. Mergers, however, are not easy to achieve. One problem

1417-592: A much larger territory covering 449,964 km (173,732 sq mi) and yet is divided into only 290 municipalities ( kommuner ). Alsace has more than double the total number of municipalities of the Netherlands which, in spite of having a population nine times larger and a land area four times larger than Alsace, is divided into just 390 municipalities ( gemeenten ). Most of the communes in Alsace, along with those in other regions of France, have rejected

1526-471: A new era from 1875 with the arrival of the railway. The commune of Chaudun was joined with Gap, by the prefectoral Decree of 22 October 1895. During World War II, the city was part of the free zone. But after November 1942 and the Case Anton , it was integrated into the occupied area. After Operation Overlord on 6 June 1944, the Germans placed some 1,000 men to hold the cuvette de Gap [Gap Basin],

1635-531: A promoter of Lutheran ideas in his youth. Farel was forced to flee to Switzerland because of controversy that was aroused by his writings against the use of images in Christian worship. In 1524, while in Basel , he wrote thirteen theses sharply criticizing Roman doctrine, but his argument was so heated that even Erasmus joined in the demand for his expulsion. He went on to Strasbourg and later Montbéliard , but

1744-536: A tank, a weapon that the guerrillas did not hold. Thinking they were then dealing with the Allies, the troops of the Reich surrendered to the Resistance. Therefore, a few hundred resistance fighters were able to capture 1,200 German soldiers, including 40 officers. The city was liberated on the evening of 19 August 1944. The commune of Romette was associated with that of Gap, by decree dated 25 November 1974. Gap ran

1853-717: Is 35 km (14 sq mi); and in Germany , the majority of Länder have communes ( Gemeinden ) with a median area above 15 km (5.8 sq mi). Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany were the only places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of France's overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards. They usually group into

1962-523: Is also Gap . The first settlement of Gap dates back to the Neolithic . The culture of these first inhabitants belonged to the southern Chasséen . Very rare testimonies of the pre-Roman era are formed by the remains of an oppidum located at the summit of the hill of Saint-Mens with few visible traces of a dolmen uncovered in 1866 and an ancient cemetery in the hamlet of Pré Camargue; but no remains were kept of these last two findings. Gallic money

2071-679: Is however outside this great valley, on another watershed slope, the Raz de Bec, at 2,385 metres (7,825 ft), is within the limits of the commune, and was in the former commune of Chaudun , which merged with Gap in the 19th century. This valley was shaped by the Glacier de la Durance during the last ice age, known as the Würm glaciation . Thus, soils are very often formed by moraine deposits. No less than five levels of lateral and frontal moraines are observable. These are clearly visible, especially on

2180-402: Is that mergers reduce the number of available elected positions, and thus are not popular with local politicians. Moreover, citizens from one village may be unwilling to have their local services run by an executive located in another village, whom they may consider unaware of or inattentive to their local needs. In December 2010 the law n° 2010-1563 regarding reform of territorial collectivities

2289-462: Is the prefecture of the department of Hautes-Alpes , in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur , Southeastern France. In 2019, the commune had a population of 40,631, making it the most populated city in Hautes-Alpes. At a height of 750 metres above sea level, to the south of the Écrins Massif , it is also France's highest prefecture. Together with other Alpine towns, Gap engages in

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2398-552: Is the main town of an urban area of 80,555 inhabitants (2018), and the main town of the Southern French Alps. 745 metres (2,400 ft) above sea level , at the right bank of the river Luye  [ fr ] , close to where it joins the Durance to the north, Gap is in the midst of a rich and preserved natural environment, south-west of the Écrins National Park , south-east of the Dévoluy massif and west of

2507-516: Is the only administrative unit below the commune in the French Republic but exists only in these three communes. These municipal arrondissements are not to be confused with the arrondissements that are subdivisions of French départements : French communes are considered legal entities , whereas municipal arrondissements, by contrast, have no official capacity and no budget of their own. The rights and obligations of communes are governed by

2616-722: Is the smallest and oldest administrative division in France . " Commune " in English has a historical association with socialist and collectivist political movements and philosophies. This association arises in part from the rising of the Paris Commune (1871) which could have more felicitously been called, in English, "the rising of the City of Paris". There is nothing intrinsically different between "town" in English and commune in French. The French word commune appeared in

2725-721: The Alpine Town of the Year Association for the implementation of the Alpine Convention to achieve sustainable development in the Alpine Arc. Gap was awarded Alpine Town of the Year in 2002. In 2013 Gap was named the sportiest city in France by the national sports newspaper L'Équipe . The first attestation of the name of the city is located in the ancient texts as Vappincum , later reduced to Vappum ,

2834-635: The Bonne (9.4 kilometres (5.8 mi)) and the torrent du Cristaye (2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi)); and on the left bank, the La Magdeleine Canal (5.3 kilometres (3.3 mi)), the Riotord (4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi)) and the torrent du Partiment , (6.7 kilometres (4.2 mi)) long. Even if the Luye hydrographic basin represents the largest share of the commune, waters at the southwest of

2943-552: The Code général des collectivités territoriales (CGCT) which replaced the Code des communes (except for personnel matters) with the passage of the law of 21 February 1996 for legislation and decree number 2000-318 of 7 April 2000 for regulations. From 1794 to 1977 — except for a few months in 1848 and 1870-1871 — Paris had no mayor and was thus directly controlled by the departmental prefect. This meant that Paris had less autonomy than certain towns or villages. Even after Paris regained

3052-485: The French Revolution , the province of Dauphiné was divided into three departments: Drôme , Isère and Hautes-Alpes which Gap became the prefecture . Hautes-Alpes then became the highest Department of France and Gap, the highest prefecture of the country. It remains prefecture of Haute-Alpes to this day. In 1802, the baron Charles-François de Ladoucette  [ fr ] was appointed Prefect of

3161-507: The Lac de Serre-Ponçon . The region around Gap is known as Gapençais  [ fr ] . The commune of Gap is almost entirely located in the Sillon de Gap [Gap trench], a wide valley bottom located about 735 metres (2,411 ft) above sea level and including the western slopes almost 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) (Charance mountain and pic de Gleize). The highest point of the municipality

3270-565: The National Assembly ( Assemblée Nationale ) passed a law creating the commune, designed to be the lowest level of administrative division in France, thus endorsing these independently created communes, but also creating communes of its own. In this area as in many others, the work of the National Assembly was, properly speaking, revolutionary: not content with transforming all the chartered cities and towns into communes,

3379-482: The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539 by Francis I , the priest in charge of the parish was also required to record baptisms, marriages, and burials. Except for these tasks, villages were left to handle other issues as they pleased. Typically, villagers would gather to decide over a special issue regarding the community, such as agricultural land usage, but there existed no permanent municipal body. In many places,

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3488-631: The United States , with a territory fourteen times larger than that of the French Republic, and nearly five times its population, had 35,937 incorporated municipalities and townships at the 2002 Census of Governments, fewer than that of the French Republic. The number of barangays in the Philippines, villages of Indonesia, and muban in Thailand also have a higher number than the French communes. There have long been calls in France for

3597-457: The Verrou glaciaire  [ fr ] [glacial lock] of Pont-Sarrazin and downstream of Tourronde. The mechanical action of the glacier de la Durance was facilitated by the presence of relatively friable layers. The part which is central and south-east of the town consists mainly of soft rocks ( Callovo - Oxfordian black marl ). They consist of soft schist of bluish or brown colors. In

3706-444: The mairies . These abrupt changes profoundly alienated devout Catholics, and France soon was plunged into the throes of civil war , with the fervently religious regions of western France at its center. It would take Napoleon I to re-establish peace in France, stabilize the new administrative system, and make it generally accepted by the population. Napoleon also abolished the election of the municipal councils, which now were chosen by

3815-716: The prefect , the local representative of the central government. Today, French communes are still very much the same in their general principles as those that were established at the beginning of the Revolution. The biggest changes occurred in 1831, when the French Parliament re-established the principle of the election of municipal councils, and in 1837 when French communes were given legal "personality", being now considered legal entities with legal capacity. The Jacobin revolutionaries were afraid of independent local powers, which they saw as conservative and opposed to

3924-551: The 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia , for a large gathering of people sharing a common life; from Latin communis , 'things held in common'. As of January 2021, there were 35,083 communes in France , of which 34,836 were in metropolitan France , 129 in the overseas departments , and 83 in the overseas collectivities and New Caledonia . This is a considerably higher total than that of any other European country , because French communes still largely reflect

4033-512: The 1999 census was even smaller, at 10.73 square kilometres (4.14 sq mi). The median area gives a better sense of the size of a typical mainland France commune than the average area since the average includes some very large communes. In Italy , the median area of communes ( comuni ) is 22 km (8.5 sq mi); in Belgium it is 40 km (15 sq mi); in Spain it

4142-401: The 36,683 communes have fewer than 500 inhabitants and, with 4,638,000 inhabitants, these smaller communes constitute just 7.7 percent of the total population. In other words, just 8 percent of the French population live in 57 percent of its communes, whilst 92 percent are concentrated in the remaining 43 percent. Alsace , with an area of 8,280 km (3,200 sq mi), and now part of

4251-515: The French crown in 1512. Gap and its area became part of the County of Provence which was established at the end of the 10th century. The County of Forcalquier was separated in the 12th century. Although the bishops of Gap were the temporal lords of the city their control was long disputed by officers of the Counts of Forcalquier notably during the episcopacy of Arnoux who later became the bishop of

4360-777: The Hautes-Alpes  [ fr ] . Under his administration, the city of Gap and the Department of the Hautes-Alpes experienced some growth. It built roads linking Gap to Italy and the Drôme Valley and created a departmental nursery. His statue, carved by the Gap sculptor Jean Marcellin, was erected in 1866 at the square which bears his name. Napoleon I left Elba in February 1815 and stopped at Gap on 5 March 1815 with 40 horsemen and 10 grenadiers, where he had thousands of copies of his Proclamations printed. The whole population of

4469-643: The Meaux circle were of different talents but they generally emphasized the study of the Bible and a return to the theology of the early Church. While working with Lefevre in Meaux, Farel came under the influence of Lutheran ideas and became an avid promoter of them. After condemnation by the Sorbonne , Farel evangelized fervently in the Dauphiné . Although Farel would become a friend and ally of John Calvin, he had been

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4578-565: The National Assembly also decided to turn all the village parishes into full-status communes. The Revolutionaries were inspired by Cartesian ideas as well as by the philosophy of the Enlightenment . They wanted to do away with all the peculiarities of the past and establish a perfect society, in which all and everything should be equal and set up according to reason, rather than by tradition or conservatism. Thus, they set out to establish administrative divisions that would be uniform across

4687-508: The Roman roads against brigands. Later, an axis towards the Champsaur  [ fr ] was created. The Gap site took importance by becoming a hub of communications. The economy was mainly pastoral and the first crops grew on the slopes of Puymaure . Some houses were built on stilts as shown by excavations. During the first centuries, the population increased significantly. Towards

4796-502: The Région Grand Est, used to be the smallest of the regions of metropolitan France , and still has no fewer than 904 communes. This high number is typical of metropolitan France but is atypical when compared with other European countries. It shows the distinctive nature of the French commune as a geo-political or administrative entity. With its 904 communes, Alsace has three times as many municipalities as Sweden , which has

4905-452: The benefit of poorer suburbs. Moreover, intercommunal structures in many urban areas are still new, and fragile: Tensions exist between communes; the city at the center of the urban area often is suspected of wishing to dominate the suburban communes; communes from opposing political sides also may be suspicious of each other. Two famous examples of this are Toulouse and Paris. In Toulouse, on top of there being six intercommunal structures,

5014-532: The central government's calls for mergers and rationalization. By way of contrast, in the German states bordering Alsace, the geo-political and administrative areas have been subject to various re-organizations from the 1960s onward. In the state of Baden-Württemberg , the number of Gemeinden or communities was reduced from 3,378 in 1968 to 1,108 in September 2007. In comparison, the number of communes in Alsace

5123-410: The chartered cities) suddenly became legal entities for the first time in their history. This is still the case today. During the revolution, approximately 41,000 communes were created, on territory corresponding to the limits of modern-day France (the 41,000 figure includes the communes of the departments of Savoie , Haute-Savoie and Alpes-Maritimes which were annexed in 1795, but does not include

5232-536: The city accompanied Napoleon when he left Gap. Acknowledging the reception of the population of these regions, he left the Haut-Alpins with the following message: The inhabitants of the departments of the high and low Alps, citizens, I was deeply touched by all the feelings that you have shown me, your wishes are granted. The cause of the Nation will triumph again. You're right to call me your father; I live for

5341-421: The city before the arrival of the Allies, to support the position of France as a victorious nation, liberated through the active participation of the Resistance. Drouot-L'Ermine then developed a new ploy. He managed to convince the Allies to advance one of their tanks into enemy terrain, and shoot a few rounds close to Gap. Shots echoed in the valley, and the Germans immediately identified the characteristic sound of

5450-493: The city by force. He then started with his men in a campaign of sabotage and bombings that lasted more than a month. After having isolated the city by destroying the infrastructure surrounding it (overpasses, railway lines, bridges, etc.), the FFI had managed to rally the population and give the occupiers an impression of encirclement. A mid-August 1944, Drouot-L'Hermine, who lost his right-hand man, Paul Héraud  [ fr ] ,

5559-423: The city experiences cold, snowy winters and warm summers. Therefore, the climate is more or less alpine . Thus the main feature of the local climate is the importance of the sunshine enjoyed by the city. Furthermore, snowfall underscores the mountain character of the city. Thunderstorms are frequent in summer, fog is rather rare. The tables below represent averages of monthly temperatures. They also show

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5668-535: The city of Toulouse chartered by the counts of Toulouse). These cities were made up of several parishes (up to c. 50 parishes in the case of Paris), and they were usually enclosed by a defensive wall . They had been emancipated from the power of feudal lords in the 12th and 13th centuries, had municipal bodies which administered the city, and bore some resemblance with the communes that the French Revolution would establish except for two key points: In

5777-577: The city. In 1692, the troops of the Piedmontese  [ fr ] ruler Victor Amadeus II , committed with the League of Augsburg , against France of Louis XIV , captured the city, abandoned by its inhabitants, on 29 August. Gap was looted and burned, of the 953 houses in the commune, 798 were destroyed. This was part of the Invasion of Dauphine in 1692  [ fr ] . In 1790, during

5886-699: The city. On the death of the last Count of Forcalquier in 1209, the Embrun and Gap areas were passed to the Dauphiné while those of Forcalquier and Sisteron returned to the County of Provence. It is for this reason that the current coat of arms of the Region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur is the coat of arms of the Dauphiné. In 1349 the Dauphin of Viennois Humbert II passed on his Principality to

5995-644: The commune (the Saint-Jean quarter) drain into the torrent of Malecombe, a tributary of the Rousine, which flows into the Durance south of Tallard. In the Northwest of the commune (located on the other side of the col de Gleize) lie the Petit Buëch  [ fr ] sources. Around 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) above sea level, they are formed by several streams which converge at the old village of Chaudun  [ fr ] . Finally, an important channel feeds Gap with drinking water and water for irrigation : The Canal de Gap  [ fr ] , or Canal du Drac , about 30 kilometres (19 mi) long, leads

6104-544: The country: the whole of France would be divided into départements , themselves divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons, themselves divided into communes, no exceptions. All of these communes would have equal status, they would all have a mayor at their head and a municipal council elected by the inhabitants of the commune. This was a real revolution for the thousands of villages that never had experienced organized municipal life before. A communal house had to be built in each of these villages, which would house

6213-413: The departments of modern-day Belgium and Germany west of the Rhine , which were part of France between 1795 and 1815). This was fewer than the 60,000 parishes that existed before the revolution (in cities and towns, parishes were merged into one single commune; in the countryside, some very small parishes were merged with bigger ones), but 41,000 was still a considerable number, without any comparison in

6322-412: The difference residing in the lack of administrative powers. Except for the municipal arrondissements of its largest cities, the communes are the lowest level of administrative division in France and are governed by elected officials including a mayor ( maire ) and a municipal council ( conseil municipal ). They have extensive autonomous powers to implement national policy. A commune

6431-472: The division of France into villages or parishes at the time of the French Revolution . (1) Within the current limits of metropolitan France, which existed between 1860 and 1871 and from 1919 to today. (2) Within the current extent of overseas France, which has remained unchanged since the independence of the New Hebrides in 1980. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes; even uninhabited mountains or rain forests are dependent on

6540-400: The effort seemed to have exhausted him and he died while still in Metz. A monument to him was unveiled at Neuchâtel on 4 May 1876. Autograph, manuscript letters of William Farel sent to other reformers and received by him, are preserved in the " Archives de l'État de Neuchâtel ". Gap, Hautes-Alpes Gap ( French pronunciation: [ɡap] , Occitan: [ˈɡap] )

6649-399: The eldest son of Philippe VI of France , the future King of France Charles V . From 1349 to 1457 Dauphiné remained a Principality separated from France, whose prince was the eldest son of the King of France. In 1457, Charles VII put an end to this status and joined the province to the Kingdom of France. The Knights Templar owned a house at Gap, a secondary establishment which depended on

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6758-496: The end of the 3rd century and 4th century, fortifications were built to protect the central core of the town. These completely surrounded the enclosure with walls and eleven towers. With an enclosed area of 2 hectares (4.9 acres) the center of the town formed a big village. From 28 December 986, the Bishop of Gap had sovereign rights over the city due to concerns about future Muslim invasions. The bishops kept this power until Revolutionary reforms in 1801 despite Gap being annexed by

6867-427: The end of the afternoon, following the storming of the Bastille , the provost of the merchants of Paris, Jacques de Flesselles was shot by the crowd on the steps of Paris City Hall. Although in the Middle Ages the provosts of the merchants symbolized the independence of Paris and even had openly rebelled against King Charles V , their office had been suppressed by the king, then reinstated but with strict control from

6976-419: The established authority led to a brief period of banishment but the Bern government again granted him liberty of worship and he was able to return to preaching. However, the struggle was not over and Farel, along with Calvin, was banished from Geneva in 1538, in part for his rigorous positions, and retired to Neuchâtel. There he spent the rest of his life, and was frequently consulted by Calvin. In 1558, when he

7085-480: The fact that there are pronounced differences in size between French communes. As mentioned in the introduction, a commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants such as Paris, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, or just a hamlet of 10 inhabitants. What the median population tells us is that the vast majority of the French communes only have a few hundred inhabitants, but there are also a small number of communes with much higher populations. In metropolitan France 57 percent of

7194-432: The final drop. The v- has been radically treated as a w- Germanic, where *Wap , then Gap (see for this type of evolution the wasp , Latin vespa , treats words as *wespa ; mistletoe , Latin viscum , treated as *wiscum , etc., depending on the phonetic path [w] > [gw] > [g]). This phonetic evolution would be more specifically made under the influence of the Gothic language . The name in Provençal (Alpine)

7303-437: The form of Gap is found in the 13th century. The toponym Vappincum is analyzed on the basis of a radical Vapp- unknown meaning, and the suffix -incu of Ligurian origin found in Provence and the Massif central to the Alps (cf. Arlanc , Nonenque , Moirans and Morencum in the 10th century and Lemenc, a district of Chambéry, formerly Lemencum ). The Gap form actually began as the short form Vappum , well attested, by

7412-558: The form of a law on 22 March 1890, which provided for the establishment of single-purpose intercommunal associations. French lawmakers having long been aware of the inadequacy of the communal structure inherited from the French Revolution for dealing with a number of practical matters, the so-called Chevènement law of 12 July 1999 is the most recent and most thoroughgoing measure aimed at strengthening and simplifying this principle. In recent years it has become increasingly common for communes to band together in intercommunal consortia for

7521-451: The glacier of the Drac from the cols of Manse and Bayard and one towards the Buëch Valley by the La Freissinouse border. The cover of morainic debris is omnipresent in the Sillon de Gap but is not the only vestige of the Quaternary glaciation. There is also the typical topography of glacial valleys. The location of the town of Gap corresponds to an Ombilic glaciaire , where large quantities of clay were deposited. Upstream lies

7630-435: The honour and happiness of France. My return banishes all your concerns; it ensures the conservation of all properties, equality among all classes and the rights you have enjoyed for the last 25 years, and after which our fathers have so yearned, forming today a part of your existence. In all circumstances where I find myself, I will always remember with great interest all that I've seen through your country. Gap experienced

7739-548: The king, and so they had ended up being viewed by the people as yet another representative of the king, no longer the embodiment of a free municipality. Following that event, a "commune" of Paris was immediately set up to replace the old medieval chartered city of Paris, and a municipal guard was established to protect Paris against any attempt made by King Louis XVI to quell the ongoing revolution. Several other cities of France quickly followed suit, and communes arose everywhere, each with their municipal guard. On 14 December 1789,

7848-437: The kingdom. A parish was essentially a church, the houses around it (known as the village), and the cultivated land around the village. France was the most populous country in Europe at this time, with a population of approximately 25 million inhabitants in the late 18th century ( England in contrast had only 6 million inhabitants), which accounts for the large number of parishes. French kings often prided themselves on ruling over

7957-653: The law. In urban areas, the new intercommunal structures are much more a reality, being created by local decision-makers out of genuine belief in the worth of working together. However, in many places, local feuds have arisen, and it was not possible to set up an intercommunal structure for the whole of the urban area: some communes refusing to take part in it, or even creating their own structure. In some urban areas like Marseille there exist four distinct intercommunal structures! In many areas, rich communes have joined with other rich communes and have refused to let in poorer communes, for fear that their citizens would be overtaxed to

8066-552: The least money per inhabitant, whereas urban communities are given the most money per inhabitant, thus pushing communes to form more integrated communities where they have fewer powers, which they might otherwise have been loath to do if it were not for government money. The Chevènement law has been extremely successful in the sense that a majority of French communes now have joined the new intercommunal structures. On 1 January 2007, there were 2,573 such communities in metropolitan France (including five syndicats d'agglomération nouvelle ,

8175-474: The local feudal lord ( seigneur ) still had a major influence in the village's affairs, collecting taxes from tenant-villagers and ordering them to work the corvée , controlling which fields were to be used and when, and how much of the harvest should be given to him. Additionally, some cities had obtained charters during the Middle Ages, either from the king himself or from local counts or dukes (such as

8284-575: The lowest communes' median population of all the European countries (communes in Switzerland or Rhineland-Palatinate may cover a smaller area, as mentioned above, but they are more populated). This small median population of French communes can be compared with Italy, where the median population of communes in 2001 was 2,343 inhabitants, Belgium (11,265 inhabitants), or even Spain (564 inhabitants). The median population given here should not hide

8393-480: The main community of Toulouse and its suburbs is only a community of agglomeration, although Toulouse is large enough to create an Urban Community according to the law. This is because the suburban communes refused an urban community for fear of losing too much power, and opted for a community of agglomeration, despite the fact that a community of agglomeration receives less government funds than an urban community. As for Paris, no intercommunal structure has emerged there,

8502-466: The maximum allowable pay of the mayor and deputy mayors, and municipal campaign finance limits (among other features) all depend on the population echelon into which a particular commune falls. Since the PLM Law of 1982, three French communes also have a special status in that they are further divided into municipal arrondissements : these are Paris, Marseille , and Lyon . The municipal arrondissement

8611-449: The maximum and minimum mean temperatures over the period from 1951 to 1970. Comparisons with surveys of the period from 1878 to 1940 showed lower maximum averages over the period from 1950 to 1970 for the winter and summer months. Over the same period, again for the winter and summer months, there was an increase in the average minimum. Thus the evolution of the climate tends towards a slight reduction of differences in winter temperatures on

8720-486: The mayors. Civil marriages were established and started to be performed in the mairie with a ceremony not unlike the traditional one, with the mayor replacing the priest, and the name of the law replacing the name of God (" Au nom de la loi, je vous déclare unis par les liens du mariage. " – "In the name of the law, I declare you united by the bonds of marriage."). Priests were forced to surrender their centuries-old baptism, marriage, and burial books, which were deposited in

8829-425: The meetings of the municipal council as well as the administration of the commune. Some in the National Assembly were opposed to such a fragmentation of France into thousands of communes, but eventually Mirabeau and his ideas of one commune for each parish prevailed. On 20 September 1792, the recording of births, marriages, and deaths also was withdrawn as a responsibility of the priests of the parishes and handed to

8938-602: The night of 3 January 1577, François Philibert, known as Cadet de Charance , opened the Saint-Arey gate, and allowed him to attack the city by surprise. To cries of "Kill! Kill!" his men proceeded in veritable butchery. De Bonne burned the cathedral, plundered the monasteries, appropriated the property of the inhabitants, and built a proud citadel on the Colline de Puymaur e [Puymaure Hill] where it dominated over Gap. Returned to Catholicism in 1622, he abandoned all claims to

9047-521: The north, cities tended to be administered by échevins (from an old Germanic word meaning judge), while in the south, cities tended to be administered by consuls (in a clear reference to Roman antiquity), but Bordeaux was administered by jurats (etymologically meaning "sworn men") and Toulouse by capitouls ("men of the chapter"). Usually, there was no mayor in the modern sense; all the échevins or consuls were on equal footing, and rendered decisions collegially. However, for certain purposes, there

9156-493: The northwestern part are the harder rocks of lighter colours, Tithonian limestone , formed in places of rocky bars or cornices. The town of Gap is crossed by the Luye  [ fr ] , a tributary of the Durance which has a total course of 22.6 kilometres (14.0 mi). During its passage through the commune, the Luye receives several torrents. It merges on the right bank with the 5.1 kilometres (3.2 mi) long Buzon ,

9265-523: The number of communes in the process – the Gemeinden of West Germany were decreased from 24,400 to 8,400 in the space of a few years – France only carried out mergers at the margin, and those were mostly carried out during the 19th century. From 41,000 communes at the time of the French Revolution, the number decreased to 37,963 in 1921, to 36,569 in 2008 (in metropolitan France). Thus, in Europe, only Switzerland has as high

9374-404: The number of municipalities compared to the large and populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia (396 Gemeinden in September 2007). Despite differences in population, each of the communes of the French Republic possesses a mayor ( maire ) and a municipal council ( conseil municipal ), which jointly manage the commune from the municipal hall ( mairie ), with exactly the same powers no matter

9483-749: The one hand, and summer on the other. Communes of France The commune ( French pronunciation: [kɔmyn] ) is a level of administrative division in the French Republic . French communes are analogous to civil townships and incorporated municipalities in the United States and Canada, Gemeinden in Germany, comuni in Italy, or municipios in Spain. The UK equivalent are civil parishes . Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and are vested with significant powers to manage

9592-631: The only partially successful statute enacted in 1966 and enabling urban communes to form urban communities or the more marked failure of the Marcellin law of 1971, the Chevènement law met with a large measure of success, so that a majority of French communes are now involved in intercommunal structures. There are two types of these structures: In exchange for the creation of a community, the government allocates money to them based on their population, thus providing an incentive for communes to team up and form communities. Communities of communes are given

9701-403: The place of the former communes, which are represented by a delegated mayor and a delegated council. Between 2012 and 2021, about 820 communes nouvelles have been established, replacing about 2,550 old communes. The expression "intercommunality" ( intercommunalité ) denotes several forms of cooperation between communes. Such cooperation first made its appearance at the end of the 19th century in

9810-541: The populations and land of the geographic area covered. The communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. Communes vary widely in size and area, from large sprawling cities with millions of inhabitants like Paris , to small hamlets with only a handful of inhabitants. Communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes ( "lieu dit" or "bourg" ),

9919-577: The presence of many clerics of the entourage of the Pope, within the chapter of the canons of Gap. The 16th and 17th centuries were particularly dark times for the city. The Wars of Religion were lethal in the region. Gap was a Catholic stronghold, while the Champsaur  [ fr ] switched to Protestantism . After various skirmishes, François de Bonne , leader of the Protestants, decided to attack Gap, nevertheless protected by 20 towers. On

10028-495: The provision of such services as refuse collection and water supply. Suburban communes often team up with the city at the core of their urban area to form a community charged with managing public transport or even administering the collection of local taxes. The Chevènement law tidied up all these practices, abolishing some structures and creating new ones. In addition, it offered central government finance aimed at encouraging further communes to join in intercommunal structures. Unlike

10137-511: The reform-minded bishop of Meaux , Guillaume Briçonnet . Farel soon became regent of the college. By 1522 he was appointed a diocesan preacher by the bishop. Farel now could invite a number of Evangelical humanists to work in his diocese to help implement his reform program within the Catholic Church. This group of humanists also included Josse van Clichtove , Martial Mazurier , Gérard Roussel , and François Vatable . The members of

10246-489: The revolution, and so they favored a powerful central state. Therefore, when they created the communes, they deprived them of any legal "personality" (as they did with the départements ), with only the central state having legal "personality." By 1837 that situation was judged impractical, as mayors and municipal councils could not be parties in courts. The consequence of the change, however, was that tens of thousands of villages which had never had legal "personality" (contrary to

10355-417: The right to elect its own mayor in 1977, the central government retained control of the Paris police. In all other French communes, the municipal police are under the mayor's supervision. French communes were created at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789–1790. Before the revolution, France's lowest level of administrative division was the parish ( paroisse ), and there were up to 60,000 of them in

10464-406: The same as those designed at the time of the French Revolution more than 200 years ago, with the same limits. Countless rural communes that had hundreds of inhabitants at the time of the French Revolution now have only a hundred inhabitants or fewer. On the other hand, cities and towns have grown so much that their urbanized area is now extending far beyond the limits of their commune which were set at

10573-403: The same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them. In Réunion, demographic expansion and sprawling urbanization have resulted in the administrative splitting of some communes . The median population of metropolitan France's communes at the 1999 census was 380 inhabitants. Again this is a very small number, and here France stands absolutely apart in Europe, with

10682-414: The size of the commune. This uniformity of status is a legacy of the French Revolution, which wanted to do away with the local idiosyncrasies and tremendous differences in status that existed in the kingdom of France. French law makes allowances for the vast differences in commune size in a number of areas of administrative law. The size of the municipal council, the method of electing the municipal council,

10791-521: The southern slopes of the Col Bayard, where they were formed in places of the terraces used by agriculture. In retreating, the glacier also left erratics of several metres high. Examples include, among others, the erratic boulders of Peyre-Ossel and Justice . The glacier, which in the Quaternary has shaped the Sillon de Gap , presented several diffluences  [ fr ] : one to

10900-609: The time of the revolution. The most extreme example of this is Paris, where the urbanized area sprawls over 396 communes. Paris in fact was one of the very few communes of France whose limits were extended to take into account the expansion of the urbanized area. The new, larger, commune of Paris was set up under the oversight of Emperor Napoléon III in 1859, but after 1859 the limits of Paris rigidified. Unlike most other European countries, which stringently merged their communes to better reflect modern-day densities of population (such as Germany and Italy around 1970), dramatically decreasing

11009-446: The town of Gap was founded from one of these stations. In 22 AD, Gap became the start of a Roman road to Valence . At this time, the location of the future city was a Roman camp. The camp was protected by a terraced wall surrounded by a ditch. It was the largest between Montgenèvre and Sisteron. The garrison that occupied it could be estimated at 360 men. They came from the surrounding peoples. They were assigned to protect users of

11118-640: The water captured in the Drac via a tunnel under the Col de Manse to the Jaussauds reservoir (altitude 1,141 metres (3,743 ft)) where it divides into two branches, including the main branch which bypasses Gap west to Correo through Charance. Gap features an oceanic climate ( Cfb ), according to the Köppen system , with continental ( Dfb ) influence due to its elevation. Very influenced by its interior position,

11227-580: The world at the time, except in the empire of China (but there, only county level and above had any permanent administration). Since then, tremendous changes have affected France, as they have the rest of Europe: the Industrial Revolution , two world wars , and the rural exodus have all depopulated the countryside and increased the size of cities. French administrative divisions, however, have remained extremely rigid and unchanged. Today about 90 percent of communes and departments are exactly

11336-428: Was adopted, which created the legal framework for the communes nouvelles (lit. "new communes"). A commune nouvelle can be created by merger of a number of communes at the request of the municipal councils of all the communes or at the initiative of the state representative in the department (the prefect ). The municipal council of the new commune can decide to create communes déléguées (lit. "delegated communes") in

11445-682: Was again forced to leave. Eventually he spent time at Zürich with Huldrych Zwingli and back at Strasbourg, with Martin Bucer . Finally given license to preach anywhere in the Canton of Bern, he convinced Neuchâtel to join the Reform in 1530. Farel established himself in Geneva in 1532, where he remained as minister, drawing Calvin to the city, but breaking with him over the Eucharist . Resistance from

11554-669: Was also found. Gap was the capital of the Celto - Ligurian Tricorii  [ fr ] tribe. These peoples, probably belonging to the Caturiges tribe, spoke the Celtic language. The Gapençais  [ fr ] was then part of the territory of the Tricorii , a Gallic people who were Romanised during the conquest of Gallia Narbonensis in 125-124 BC, and whose capitals were Luc-en-Diois and Vaison . Around 20 BC, Cottius ,

11663-1053: Was one échevin or consul ranking above the others, a sort of mayor, although not with the same authority and executive powers as a modern mayor. This "mayor" was called provost of the merchants ( prévôt des marchands ) in Paris and Lyon; maire in Marseille, Bordeaux, Rouen , Orléans , Bayonne and many other cities and towns; mayeur in Lille ; premier capitoul in Toulouse; viguier in Montpellier ; premier consul in many towns of southern France; prêteur royal in Strasbourg ; maître échevin in Metz ; maire royal in Nancy ; or prévôt in Valenciennes . On 14 July 1789, at

11772-555: Was only reduced from 946 in 1971 (just before the Marcellin law aimed at encouraging French communes to merge with each other was passed, see Current debate section below) to 904 in January 2007. Consequently, the Alsace region—despite having a land area only one-fifth the size and a total population only one-sixth of that of its neighbor Baden-Württemberg—has almost as many municipalities. The small Alsace region has more than double

11881-507: Was sixty-nine, Farel married Marie Thorel, who was a teenager. Scott Manetsch notes that Calvin was "flabbergasted and irate" at the marriage, "fearing that his friend's scandalous action would inflict irreparable damage on the cause of the Reformation throughout Europe." The couple did have a son six years later, although he died in infancy. In his final year, after Calvin's death, Farel visited Metz and preached with all his old fire, but

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